When the police can't help, California private eye Kinsey Millhone tackles her clients' problems with wry honesty and a touch of humour. Well written, well plotted and with engaging characters you want to spend time with.
Chosen because: I've been reading this series so long I can't remember
Starting at 'A is for Alibi', and working via 'E is for Evidence' and 'J is for Judgement' through to 'V is for Vendetta', it's almost obligatory to describe Sue Grafton's 'alphabet' series in a series of alphabetical jokes. But I'll skip all the guff about 'S for Suspense' and 'W for Wit', and get straight onto the review.
'A is for Alibi' first introduced Kinsey Millhone, a private detective in the small Californian town of Santa Theresa. Santa Theresa and the Californian landscape is almost a character in itself, described lovingly and in detail as Kinsey makes her way from clue to clue. We see the growing down-town shopping area, the wealthy homes of Horton's Ravine, the windswept beach, and the run down suburbs with their dusty mom and pop stores. If anything, some of the books seem a chance for Sue Grafton to introduce new landscapes - California's deserts and their trailer communities feature in one, while 'N is for Noose' involves no nooses, but a fascinating portrait of a remote town in the mountains.
One of the great things about the series, and which isn't always the case in crime fiction, is that there is almost always a genuine mystery to be unravelled. We are presented with a series of clues, and Kinsey doggedly follows them up, until the whole plot shakes itself out and into place. Kinsey herself is a woman I enjoy spending time with - honest and determined, unshakingly loyal to her friends, and with a compulsion to lie in the interests of uncovering the truth. Set in the 1980s, when the first was written, the
lack of mobile phones and the Internet give Kinsey a more challenging
and isolated role than the same private detective might have today. The novels themselves balance pace and thoughtfulness - the sadness of crime and failed human relationships is clear, at the same time as Kinsey revels in the thrill of uncovering cheats and scammers.
So far, we're all the way through to 'V is for Vendetta', and Sue Grafton is apparently planning to take the series through to Z and then stop. The more recent novels have alternated between the first person narrative and a third person narrative describing events that Kinsey herself hasn't witnessed. Personally, I enjoy this rather less, largely because Kinsey herself, and Kinsey's voice, are what I really enjoy. However, the mysteries are still good, and Grafton has been able to stretch herself into some intriguing new topics, including false memories and the mob.
The only remaining mystery is surely what will 'Z' be for? 'Z is for Zebra'? 'Zoo'? 'Zanzibar'? All Sue Grafton's fans will be waiting with interest.
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Friday 2 May 2014
Review of Bubbles Unbound, by Sarah Strohmeyer (2002)
A screwball detective comedy about a middle-aged hairdresser whose plans to improve her life go awry. Featuring mysterious handsome strangers, poisoned mascara and Slim-Fast, a dead cheerleader and an all-powerful local employer.
Chosen because: Found on a shelf in a hotel in Thailand
One minute it's a dead secret hidden in a crumbling Victorian manor-house, the next it's a middle-aged New Jersey hairdresser with ambitions for self-improvement. You can't say that the world of detective fiction is limited in scope.
Bubbles Yablonsky is the said New Jersey hairdresser, and more than conscious that she needs to provide her teenage daughter with a role model. So she returns to education, struggling through course after course at the local community college, until she finds her niche as a freelance journalist for the local paper. What starts as reporting on the minutiae of local life rapidly turns into a murder investigation that could help her hit the big time.
Bubbles is a heroine very much in the mode of Stephanie Plum, Janet Evanowitz's kooky and unquashable bail-bondsman. There's the same fast-paced action, the quirky elderly relatives, the troubles and opportunities of small town New Jersey life. In fact, Sarah Strohmeyer mentions in the acknowledgements that Bubbles was dreamt up at Evanowitz's kitchen table. But while Stephanie Plum is light-hearted comedy from start to finish, Stohmeyer's book is a slightly more uneasy blend of the serious and the screwball. Bubbles has real dilemmas that Stephanie never sees - a hamster doesn't need it's owner to set it a good example. And so she goes back to education, keeps up her job in the salon where she has responsibilities and commitments, and thinks carefully about sleeping with the handsome love-god who appears on her doorstep. I like the idea - frankly, Stephanie Plum's endless faffing between the two impossibly good-looking men in her life is starting to annoy me - but in practice, I felt that the serious and the comic sides of the plot didn't quite fit together. The local steelwork's irresponsible business practices was particularly awkward in this respect, ranging between being matter for gross-out jokes and for the tragic death of Bubbles' father. Frankly, I think that Strohmeyer might have been more at home writing a more openly political crime thriller, in the style of Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels.
Having said all that, if you like Stephanie Plum (and I do), it's well worth trying out Bubbles Yablonsky.
Chosen because: Found on a shelf in a hotel in Thailand
One minute it's a dead secret hidden in a crumbling Victorian manor-house, the next it's a middle-aged New Jersey hairdresser with ambitions for self-improvement. You can't say that the world of detective fiction is limited in scope.
Bubbles Yablonsky is the said New Jersey hairdresser, and more than conscious that she needs to provide her teenage daughter with a role model. So she returns to education, struggling through course after course at the local community college, until she finds her niche as a freelance journalist for the local paper. What starts as reporting on the minutiae of local life rapidly turns into a murder investigation that could help her hit the big time.
Bubbles is a heroine very much in the mode of Stephanie Plum, Janet Evanowitz's kooky and unquashable bail-bondsman. There's the same fast-paced action, the quirky elderly relatives, the troubles and opportunities of small town New Jersey life. In fact, Sarah Strohmeyer mentions in the acknowledgements that Bubbles was dreamt up at Evanowitz's kitchen table. But while Stephanie Plum is light-hearted comedy from start to finish, Stohmeyer's book is a slightly more uneasy blend of the serious and the screwball. Bubbles has real dilemmas that Stephanie never sees - a hamster doesn't need it's owner to set it a good example. And so she goes back to education, keeps up her job in the salon where she has responsibilities and commitments, and thinks carefully about sleeping with the handsome love-god who appears on her doorstep. I like the idea - frankly, Stephanie Plum's endless faffing between the two impossibly good-looking men in her life is starting to annoy me - but in practice, I felt that the serious and the comic sides of the plot didn't quite fit together. The local steelwork's irresponsible business practices was particularly awkward in this respect, ranging between being matter for gross-out jokes and for the tragic death of Bubbles' father. Frankly, I think that Strohmeyer might have been more at home writing a more openly political crime thriller, in the style of Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels.
Having said all that, if you like Stephanie Plum (and I do), it's well worth trying out Bubbles Yablonsky.
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